Syrian FM in Iran for talks with allies

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem arrived in Iran Tuesday to meet his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss the situation in the region, the official IRNA news agency reported.

His visit comes with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, President Vladimir Putin's special Middle East representative, also in Tehran.

IRNA said Bogdanov and Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian discussed "the situation in Syria and the region".

Iran and Russia are the two main allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime. Tehran backs him both financially and militarily by sending military advisers.

Iranian media reported that a tripartite meeting between Zarif, Bogdanov and Muallem will also take place to discuss the conflict in Syria.

On Sunday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic republic's nuclear agreement with world powers would create better prospects for solutions in Syria and Yemen, two of the Middle East's worst conflict zones.

"The final solution in Yemen is political, in Syria the final solution is political," Rouhani said on state television.

"The agreement will create a new atmosphere. The climate will be easier."

Ali Akbar Velayati, international affairs adviser to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, told a visiting Serbian minister Tuesday that Tehran would continue to support its regional allies.

IRNA quoted him as naming "the legal governments in Iraq or Syria or the Islamic resistance in Lebanon", a reference to the Shiite Hezbollah group.

Velayati also criticised "the United States and some reactionaries in the region, like the Saudis, who want to interfere more in the region".

"The Americans train terrorists in Syria's neighbours and then support them when they kill only innocent people," he said.